


drive

by punk_rock_yuppie



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Confessions, Feelings, Get together fic, Kissing, M/M, guys being dumb, handjobs, sex on location
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-31 00:16:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21437056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punk_rock_yuppie/pseuds/punk_rock_yuppie
Summary: California never felt like home to me, until I had you on the open roadWhile on location, Ryan takes a chance and Shane has a realization.
Relationships: Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej
Comments: 26
Kudos: 247





	drive

**Author's Note:**

> *walks in six months late with some porn and feelings*
> 
> 'drive' by halsey is a very shyan song and as such inspired this fic in its entirety. this is my extremely on-the-nose take on the lyric in the summary.
> 
> enormous thanks to Aurel ([cantarina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cantarina/pseuds/cantarina)) for the most wonderful beta'ing! this fic is great because of him! 
> 
> enjoy!

Shane likes California just fine. He wouldn’t live here, otherwise. Sure, his job is here, and his friends are here, and his cat is here, but if he didn’t actually like it,  _ he _ wouldn’t be here. Plain and simple. That said, he still hesitates to call it home, sometimes. He can’t quite pin down what it is, but ever since he touched down at LAX all those years ago, he’s always had a fleeting feeling about California. That it wasn’t meant to last. 

The impermanence always lingers in Shane’s mind—but he’s not gearing up to leave quite yet. Even with all the recent upheaval at Buzzfeed, he’s feeling as safe and secure in his job as he really can. He’s still fighting the execs to let him do another season of Ruining History, and Unsolved is still going strong. He’s got no reason to leave California yet, and he doesn’t see it happening for a while. Not until he’s good and ready.

It’s kind of a conflicting mess of feelings: knowing something isn’t permanent but not knowing when it all will change. Shane doesn't spend that much time thinking about it, really. It’s simply a fact of his life. A day will come when California just isn’t the place for him anymore, and he’ll move on. Maybe with Buzzfeed—maybe he’ll move to New York, like Steven—and maybe not. Could go to Seattle, or Portland, or hell, maybe Canada. 

The thought fills him with a mixture of excitement and stomach-churning anxiety, so Shane forces his attention elsewhere. Like the scenery flickering by the window as they fly down the freeway. At the moment, it’s a lot of fields and farmlands, left dry from a hot summer. The sporadic trees peppered along the freeway, on the other hand, are luscious green and full. Shane admires the contrast, and faintly, his heart pounds with nostalgia for Illinois. 

Shane shrugs his shoulders and shrugs off the feeling of longing; he twists his neck, relishing the pop of tension being released. Ryan shoots him a look from the driver’s side and Shane shrugs unapologetically. Ryan stares for a beat, bites his bottom lip, then looks back at the road. 

“It’s not my fault you got the tiniest fucking rental car possible,” Shane says, tilting his head and listening to his hair scrape along the roof. “I am but a man crammed inside a tin box.”

“Whatever,” Ryan says without heat. “It was all they had.”

“Sure, Ryan,” Shane drawls, though he knows it’s true; he was there. “Are you getting this on camera, Teej? This slight against me?”

TJ rolls his eyes in the back. He doesn’t dignify them with an answer. 

Shane twists around in his seat away from TJ, looking back at Ryan in the driver’s seat. Ryan’s focused intently on the road, though his fingers tap against the steering wheel to the faint rhythm of the song on the radio. He looks sleep-rumpled but excited—par for the course with a ghoul hunt, of course. The almost eight-hour flight to Savannah, Georgia had taken a lot out of them all, but Ryan never fails to get excited in the face of potential spooky happenings.

Shane bites his bottom lip on a smile and turns to watch the scenery again. 

“Tell me about the place, Ryan,” Shane says as they stand on the stoop of the Kehoe House. His hands are on his hips and he leans back so that the GoPro strapped to his chest gets a good shot of the outside. It’s all red brick and statuesque iron pillars, surrounded by lush and well-kept shrubbery. The whole building has an aura of  _ history _ rolling off it in waves, and Shane basks in the feeling.

Ryan stands beside him, also gazing up at the building. The streetlamps outside cast gold light across his face. “Currently a bed and breakfast, the Kehoe House was built in 1892 by Irishman William Kehoe. After it was completed, Kehoe, his wife, and their ten children moved into the house.” 

“Ten kids?” Shane says, adding a jolt of shock to his tone. It’s not actually _that_ surprising, but the slight curl to Ryan’s lips as he continues speaking makes it worth it. It’s all stuff that’ll get dubbed over in post with a voiceover, but Shane listens intently to Ryan. 

“Though the reports haven’t been verified, rumor has it that at least two of the Kehoe children died in this building. People staying at the bed and breakfast report the sounds of children playing and running down the hallways.”

“That is generally what unsupervised children do, Ryan. Presumably people take their children with them on vacation, and children inevitably find ways to mess around.”

Ryan tilts his head and shoots Shane a glare. “Shut up, Shane.” 

“C’mon, there’s gotta be more going on with this place than some kids goofing around.” Shane shoves his hands in his pockets and takes two steps closer to the door. “Give me the good stuff.”

Ryan follows him, stepping slowly up, and up, until he’s on the same step as Shane again, and then one step higher. “The building was also a funeral home for a while,” Ryan says. 

Shane nods. “And we’re sleeping here, right?”

“Yep.”

“Nice,” Shane says honestly. “This looks even better than the Dauphine. Do you think they have jacuzzi tubs here?”

Ryan’s laughter echoes out beyond them and Shane’s heart thuds in his chest. “I think you’re outta luck, big guy. C’mon,” he slaps at Shane’s arm, “let’s get going.” 

From there, it’s all pretty normal. They meander around the house with the lights on for a bit as Ryan regales the camera with the history—which is, surprisingly, not much. It’s not as active a spot as Shane’s used to them investigating, and a quick search tells him that the place doesn’t even tout itself as a haunted hotel. He side-eyes Ryan for a bit, until the other man finally says, “Okay, let’s get spooky,” and they kill the lights. 

The house isn’t any creepier in the dark, if you ask Shane. If you ask Ryan, it’s pretty clear that this place is an offshoot of Satan’s asshole or something. Every minute creak of the stairs or groan of the house settling has Ryan practically jumping out of his skin. By the fifteenth time it happens, Shane’s clutching his side from laughing too hard, and even in the dark it’s clear that Ryan’s pink in the face with embarrassment. 

“Are you gonna be able to sleep here tonight, Ryan?”

“It’s creepy, asshole!” Ryan scowls. “Didn’t you hear that in the kitchen?”

“All I heard was your spirit box, spitting out nonsense, as usual.”

“That was totally a kid giggling and asking for something.”

“Ah yes, a Kehoe child asking for, what, milk and cookies? My bad.” Shane rolls his eyes deliberately at the camera TJ has trained on him. 

“I hate you.”

Shane shakes his head. “C’mon, Bergmeister, let’s get to bed.” The back of his neck burns faintly at the words but if he’s lucky, the camera doesn’t catch it. He steps forward and shoves at Ryan’s shoulder, pushing him in the direction of the room they’ll be staying in tonight. 

“I’m not gonna fucking sleep,” Ryan says, but he does head towards the bedroom so Shane counts it as a win. 

True to form, Ryan doesn’t sleep. Shane sleeps a little bit, but Ryan wakes him up somewhere around the three o’clock mark and Shane doesn’t shrug him off in favor of sleep. He twists in the cramped bed they’re sharing and looks at Ryan, who’s flat on his back and staring at the ceiling.

“Nothing’s there, Ryan,” Shane says around a yawn. He rubs at his eyes to clear out some of the sleep sand, but without his glasses, everything is still blurry. 

Ryan gulps audibly. “It’s not the ghosts. Or, like. It’s not _just_ the ghosts.” He looks over at Shane briefly before returning to the ceiling. “Just, like...the show.”

“Uh uh.” 

“It’s been going for a while now, and I just...I don’t want you...God.” 

Shane can’t see it but he can hear it when Ryan rubs at his face, an anxious move. “Don’t want me to what?” 

Ryan murmurs something but it’s too quiet to hear. 

“What?” Shane shifts to sit up a bit, balanced on is elbow. “What are you talking about?” 

It’s too dark to make out any details, even this close and even with the bit of moonlight streaming in through the window, but Shane doesn’t need those things to know the look Ryan’s wearing. It’s his “gathering up courage” face—a little scrunched up, lips pursed, but eyes wide with fear. Shane scoots closer on the bed; he shifts the blankets out of the way when they start to get rucked up, and Shane forces himself not to startle when his calves brush against Ryan’s bare feet. 

“What are you talking about, Ryan?” Shane asks again.

Ryan rolls over abruptly. It brings him nearly nose to nose with Shane. He opens his mouth, something Shane only knows because he hears Ryan’s quiet inhale, but doesn’t speak.

“This bed is pretty nice,” Shane says instead. Sure, he’s kind of dying to know what, other than ghosts, is scaring Ryan right now. He’s also a good friend, though, and good friends give each other outs and distractions. 

It works. Ryan rewards him with a goofily confused sound. 

“The bed,” Shane repeats as he pats at the covers, “it’s nice.” It’d be even better if he could _sleep_ on it, but he’ll take what he can get. Beats laying on the floor in a sleeping bag. 

“Kinda cramped,” Ryan mumbles. His gaze flickers down the bed and back up to Shane’s face. 

“Well, yes, that is an unfortunate side effect of sharing a bed with me. I do, in general, take up quite a bit of real estate.”

“I like your real estate,” Ryan says, which is a ridiculous thing to say, but Shane doesn’t get a chance to question it before Ryan is crashing against him. Ryan plants a hand on Shane’s chest, the other one trapped against the bed, and he kisses Shane like his life depends on it. 

It’s a clumsy kiss, teeth clacking and spit pooling at the corners of their mouths. Shane brings up a hand and cups Ryan’s cheek and Ryan adjusts. He tilts his head just slightly and Shane mirrors him and their mouths slot together a little easier. Ryan moves closer and the blanket bunches up between them but Shane’s too preoccupied to shove it out of the way.

“Shane,” Ryan gasps into his mouth. He finally shoves at the blanket and pushes it down to their legs before clambering into Shane’s lap.

Shane lets out an _oof_ of surprise but his hands dutifully find Ryan’s hips; he stares up, gobsmacked, at his friend. “Ryan, what—?” He struggles to sit up at least a little big and presses his back against the headboard. Ryan rises off his lap just long enough to let Shane settle before he’s sitting again, right over Shane’s hardening cock. 

“Shut up, Shane,” and look, the slight rush of arousal at hearing those words isn’t exactly new, but it’s never been accompanied by Ryan grinding down against his half-chub. Shane tightens his grip and digs his nails into Ryan’s hips and moans into Ryan’s mouth. Shane lets out a downright embarrassing whimper that has Ryan grinning against his lips. “That works too,” Ryan says, the smug bastard; when he reaches down and lays a hand over the front of Shane’s sleep pants, his hand shakes.

“Ryan, it’s okay, we can take this slow,” Shane says. It’s still dark but he can just barely see Ryan shake his head. “Ryan, seriously.” 

And he means it—he’d be happy with just this, Ryan in his lap and in his hands, surrounding him. He’s wanted it for a while, has thought about it every time they’ve gone on location. He’s imagined it a million different ways, ranging from something scaring Ryan to the hotel accidentally only giving them one bed. This exact scenario, Ryan being kind of abrupt and evasive, never quite crossed his mind, but Shane isn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. 

“I want to,” Ryan says, bringing him from his thoughts and kissing Shane at the same moment his hand slips inside Shane’s pajamas. 

His fingertips brush the tip of Shane’s cock before trailing down the skin. He’s not fully hard yet but he’s getting there fast enough to make him dizzy. He lets out a shuddering sigh and Ryan grins against his cheek, lips pressed to stubbled, before he starts stroking Shane in earnest. It’s dry and the angle is kind of awful but it’s _Ryan_ in his _lap_ so it’s kind of perfect. 

“Fuck, Ry,” Shane breathes. His hips jump as he ruts into Ryan’s hand. “Not gonna last.”

Ryan lets out a moan of his own and nods frantically. “Yeah, c’mon, Shane.” 

Shane finally detaches a hand from Ryan’s hip in favor of wrapping it around his waist instead. It pulls him slightly closer, and ruins the angle more, but Shane’s feeling drunk on the feeling of Ryan against him so he can deal with the awkward angle. It’s what handjobs are all about, really. 

The thought makes him laugh and Ryan gives him a weird look, so Shane kisses him instead. He drops his hand to cup the curve of Ryan’s ass and gets a squeak in return. 

“Shane!” Ryan gasps as a whole-body shudder runs through him. 

“Fuck,” Shane hisses. 

Ryan’s eyes flutter shut and his mouth drops open as Shane grabs his ass, a whole fucking handful, and Shane’s mind is ablaze with thoughts. There are so many things he wants to do, to taste and to feel—to _ say _ . He’s panting harshly now, he’s so close. All it takes is Ryan opening his eyes, looking at him from heavy eyelashes, and Shane’s fucking done for. 

He chokes on a groan and throws his head back against the headboard with a _thunk_. Stars dance across his eyes from the pain and the orgasm at the same time. He thinks he hears Ryan laughing at him, but it’s hard to tell over the blood rushing in his ears. 

“You’re so stupid,” Ryan says, “you’re lucky you’re hot.”

“I am, huh?” Shane slowly opens his eyes. He smiles at Ryan, who smiles back. “C’mere,” he says, tugging Ryan closer still with the hand around his waist. Ryan hastens to get his come-spattered hand out of Shane’s pants and, after a devastatingly hilarious flappy, settles for wiping it clean on the bedsheets. “Just for that,” Shane says, “we’re sleeping on your half of the bed tonight.” 

Ryan’s laugh gets tangled in a moan as Shane sticks his hand down Ryan’s pants. Because he’s not a heathen like Ryan, he at least tucks the band of Ryan’s waistband down under his balls so he can get a proper hand on his dick. The minute his fingers curl around Ryan’s cock, Ryan jolts in his grasp. His hands, one still sticky with come, slap onto Shane’s biceps. 

“Oh god, Shane,” he hisses as Shane starts to stroke him.

“Mm,” Shane hums. He wishes they had thought to turn on a light before they really got down to business, because while the moonlight is romantic and all, it’s not really conducive to committing this whole thing to memory. Shane settles for listening intently to every one of Ryan’s wet gasps, shuddering breaths, hitched moans. 

Shane slips his other hand down the back of Ryan’s pants to get a better grip on his ass and Ryan groans deep and loud, right against Shane’s cheek. Shane tilts his head slightly and looks at Ryan as best he can. Ryan’s panting and gasping and he arches his back just enough that Shane’s fingers slip between his cheeks.

He drags the pad of one finger over Ryan’s hole, his own body buzzing with adrenaline, and Ryan whines loud enough that, were anyone else staying in the bed and breakfast tonight, they’d absolutely hear him. Ryan fucks into the tight circle of Shane’s fist twice, three times more before he’s coming all over their laps and Shane’s fingers. 

Ryan slumps against him in the immediate aftermath of his orgasm and while it’s kind of annoying, Shane finds he doesn’t actually mind too much. He wipes his hand clean in the same spot Ryan did earlier, then winds his other arm around Ryan’s waist too. 

Ryan melts and tucks his face against Shane’s neck. Ryan reaches down long enough to pull his pajama pants back up, and then his hands are on Shane’s shoulders, gripping tight. 

Shane lets him linger in the afterglow for a moment, but eventually his resolve breaks. “Ryan?”

“Hm?” Ryan actually sounds about half-way to sleep, which is a miracle. Part of Shane wants to let it go, ask in the morning, let Ryan get some fucking sleep for once. Ryan snuffles against his neck, nuzzling against him. 

“What were you gonna say, earlier?”

Ryan stiffens in his hold. “Nothing.” He leans back enough that, were it brighter, Shane could see his face. “It was nothing,” Ryan says again, “just...don’t go, okay?”

Shane frowns. “What? Ry, I’m not going anywhere.” 

Ryan curls tighter around him and hides his face again. “Good. Don’t go,” he says again, voice both urgent and sleep-heavy. 

Shane opens his mouth but he realizes he doesn’t even know how to respond to that. Ryan is heavy in his lap and while, sure, Shane _could_ shove him off, it’s not like he’s inclined to. A trip to the bathroom wouldn’t be the worst, but Shane’s dealt with worse than sticky pajama pants. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Shane repeats, and Ryan snores in response. 

_ We’ll talk in the morning, I guess, _ Shane thinks. It takes some crafty maneuvering but he manages to get Ryan out of his lap and only mildly tangled in the blankets, settling Ryan back on his side of the bed. After a considering glance at the wet spot, Shane rolls until he’s half on top of Ryan, a leg almost hooked over his hip. 

Shane falls asleep with his head on Ryan’s chest. 

Shane wakes in the morning to find Ryan dressed in fresh clothes and already packing up their equipment. “Dude,” Shane says, yawning, “I could’ve helped.”

“Nope!” Ryan sounds chipper, but in a brittle way. False confidence. “I got it.” Sure enough, he stows the last of their equipment away and swings the two bags over his shoulder. “TJ and the others are waiting downstairs. We can film the outro and get the fuck out of here.”

Shane’s still groggy but Ryan’s nervous energy is propelling him into action. “Did something happen last night?” He asks. “Besides the obvious, I mean.” His cock twitches in his pajamas thoughtfully. 

“What?” Ryan lets out a nearly hysterical laugh. “Nope, nada, nothing.” 

“Uh huh…” Shane finally pushes off the blanket and swings his legs out of the bed. “Nothing spooky? You’re acting like you actually saw a ghost or something.”

“Nope!” Ryan half-shouts again. “See you downstairs!”

The bedroom door falls shut behind him with a snap.

“Well,” Shane says aloud to the empty room, “so much for talking about it.” 

The drive to the airport and the flight home are tense, to say the least. Ryan doesn’t outright avoid him, but Shane is pretty sure avoidance would at least be  _ less _ awkward. Instead, all their conversations are stilted. More often than not, one of them trails off and the other doesn’t pick up the thread of the conversation like they normally would. Shane’s simultaneously distracted by all his memories of the previous night, and the insane notion that maybe it was all just a dream, and annoyed by the fact that  _ Ryan won’t fucking talk to him _ . 

Shane goes home alone, though Obi greets him at the door. He drops his bags by the couch and feeds his cat in a daze. Thoughts going a mile a minute, he falls onto his couch and steeples his fingers. 

“Okay,” he says more to himself than anything, “so there were some mutual handjobs.” Obi stops eating long enough to look over at him, unimpressed. Shane continues his monologue to the crunching and smacking of Obi digging in. “Ryan’s your best friend, has been for years. You’ve entertained this idea from time to time.”

Shane leans forward and rests his chin on his linked fingers. “You really like Ryan,” he tells himself, because it’s true. Even when the guy annoys the shit out of him, Shane would rather have him around than not. “Ryan’s great, why wouldn’t you like him?” 

He nods to himself. He has firmly established that he likes Ryan, would like to date Ryan even, would like to have a repeat (or two, or ten) of the night before. He replays the night in his head, scene by scene. He lingers briefly on the memory of Ryan’s lips against his, Ryan’s hand on his cock—but focuses his attention on Ryan before it all. Scared, unsure, working up the courage for _something_. In the moment, up until right now actually, Shane had thought maybe it was just the kiss itself. 

But Ryan’s words, _“don’t want you…”_ echo in Shane’s head. 

“Don’t want me to what?” He says aloud. “I wasn’t about to hit it and quit it.” Ryan can’t answer him, because Ryan is not in the room, but it helps to say it aloud. 

Ryan is simultaneously an open book and a complex, fifteen-hundred-piece puzzle. Shane’s gotten pretty good at deciphering Ryan, even when he doesn’t have all the pieces, but he lingers on the words.  _Don’t go. What the fuck, Ryan? I’m not going anywhere. Ever._

_ Ever. _

Shane rises off the couch and says, “I’ll be back.” Obi replies with a half-meow, half-crunch as he keeps eating, happily uncaring for the epiphany Shane’s just had. “No house parties,” Shane says, and then he’s out the door. 

Ryan answers the bedroom door in sweats, a rumpled t-shirt, and one eye open. “Wha?” 

“We need to talk.” 

Ryan rubs at his eyes and opens them both to stare at Shane. “What?” he says again. 

“Let me in, Ryan,” Shane says. Ryan steps back and lets Shane in, pushing the door shut behind him. “So. Last night.”

Ryan doesn’t immediately go on the defensive like Shane anticipates. Instead, he shuffles from foot to foot, cheeks warm with embarrassment. He looks away from Shane and to the ground instead, still shifting his feet. “Uh, yes.” 

“That actually happened, right? That wasn’t some heat-induced fever dream?”

“It wasn’t even that hot,” Ryan says. “But no, no it wasn’t a dream.” 

“Great. Do you think I want to leave the show or something?”

Ryan stiffens. “What? No. That’s crazy.” 

“That’s your “you’re totally right Shane” voice.”

“I do not have a voice like that.”

“You do, you just used it,” Shane says, but he shakes his head. “Whatever, doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t?” Ryan arches an eyebrow but there’s a quiver in his voice—like uncertainty, like fear. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Shane says firmly. “I meant it last night when there was come on my pants and I mean it right now. I’m not gonna ditch the show, or you. Ever. If I did, which wouldn’t be any time soon, I’d talk to you first. I wouldn’t just disappear.”

Ryan lets out a sigh of relief, though it’s quiet. Shane watches him take a deep breath and make that face again, the gathering courage one, before he speaks. “I just don’t want you to feel stuck.” 

Shane would roll his eyes if he didn’t think the moment was maybe a little too fragile for that. He swallows a sigh and says, “You said you liked my real estate.”

“I did?”

“Before the handjobs.”

Ryan blinks. His blush darkens. “I did?” he repeats. 

“You did. I said I take up a lot of real estate, and you said you like my real estate. This is me saying you have free reign to inspect the real estate whenever you would like. The real estate is not going anywhere. There is no relocation happening to this particularly tall apartment complex. I’m going to let you sublet this real estate, if you want, because that’s what _I_ want.”

“This metaphor is getting away from you, I think.” 

Shane sighs. “Yeah, it is. But I still mean it. I didn’t get it, at first, why you fucking kissed me and shoved your hand down my pants. But I get it _now_. That wasn’t your only chance, you know that right? I really fucking like you, man. And I’m not just going to bail.

Shane takes a deep breath. “That’s it. Plain and simple. I like you, and I want to be with you, and stay in California with you forever because you’re a delicate flower who can’t live anywhere else.”

“I could live somewhere else!” Ryan snaps. “Just not, like, where it’s fucking freezing all the time.”

“So we stay in California. Or wherever you want to be, that’s where I want to be. With you.”

“With me,” Ryan echoes. His hands are twisting nervously in his shirt. “Really? Wait, were you thinking of leaving California?”

Shane runs a hand through his hair. “No. Or, not like any time soon. I just, I just always figured I wouldn’t be in LA forever, right? Or even California in general. I don’t know where I expected to end up, or settle down, but I just assumed it’d be somewhere else.”

“And, what, one night of mutual handjobs and you’ve changed your tune?”

“No. A little. Kind of.” Shane staggers closer to Ryan and lays his hands on his shoulders. “I think you’ve been keeping me tethered here for a lot longer than I realized. Which sounds so, _so_ ridiculous, but I can’t really explain it. The handjobs,” he can’t help but grin, and Ryan huffs a laugh, “the handjobs just helped me realize it, is all.” 

“You’re so weird,” Ryan says, laughing brightly now. His hands find Shane’s hip. “C’mere,” he says, but Shane’s already ducking down to kiss him. It’s languid and easy—nothing like the rush from the night before, and better for it. Ryan takes his time and Shane matches his pace; it’s like they’ve got all the time in the world. And technically, they do. It’s Saturday night and Shane knows for a fact neither of them has anything to do tomorrow. 

He breaks the kiss and pulls Ryan into a hug. He tucks his face against Ryan’s hair and inhales deeply. “Why _did_ you kiss me, by the way? I’m dying to know.”

Ryan groans against his neck and even though it’s distinctly unsexy, Shane’s cock twitches in his pants. “I had a whole speech planned, because I just wanted to talk to you, but then I chickened out.”

“You kissed me like you were trying to eat me alive and gave me like, one of the top ten best handjobs of my life. I wouldn’t say you chickened out.”

Against him, Ryan laughs and it rumbles through Shane’s entire body. Shane hugs him tighter, kisses the top of his head, shivers when Ryan kisses his throat. 

“It got us here,” Ryan concedes, “so I guess it worked out.”

“I’d say so,” Shane says. He leans back and swoops in for another kiss. 

Ryan yawns into it after a few minutes, and he laughs a little sheepishly. “Come to bed? I promise not to surprise you with any handjobs this time, we can just sleep.”

“The romance is dead already,” Shane says, pressing a hand to his chest in mock dismay. Ryan laughs at him again and grabs his hand, entwines their fingers, and tugs him along. Shane lets him lead the way even though it’s a path Shane knows plenty well by now. 

_ There’s nothing fleeting about this, _ Shane thinks with delight. There’s nothing fleeting about Ryan’s smile or his glee or his grip on Shane’s hand. 

A few minutes later, in bed with Ryan—in a pair of pajama pants that are too short and a t-shirt that is, weirdly, too large—Shane thinks, _I could stay here forever_. 


End file.
